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Three Content Strategy Mistakes Every Marketer Should Avoid

Strategic content marketing is now becoming incredibly essential and affordable for more and more brands. The challenge that most marketers are facing today is using it to get genuine leads.

While brands today are experimenting with all kinds of content formats to convert their audience, just a handful of them seem to connect. According to this article, the Content Marketing Institute finds that around 70 per cent of B2B companies are now creating more content than they did one year ago. Further, B2B marketers spend about 28 per cent of their entire marketing budgets on content marketing, a figure that the most agencies expect to rise over the course of the year, the same article states.

However there has been a serious disconnect between what is perceived by brands and what their audiences expect, as almost 79 per cent of the leads generated hardly ever make it to the sales threshold, informs the report.

Here are some insights on how to eliminate this disconnect:

Mistake 1 – Investing in the wrong content format

Getting the content medium right is half the battle won. If you are still uncertain about what kind of content you should invest in, here are some eye-openers –

The CMO Council report cites that most brands today are investing their content marketing monies in the following formats –

Product brochures (84 per cent) and Corporate brochures (70 per cent)

Infographics (65 per cent)

White papers (78 per cent)

Webcasts (64 per cent)

Videos (76 per cent)

Slide presentations (79 per cent)

Whereas the real quality lead churners have been –

Infographics (12 per cent)

White papers (24 cent)

eBooks (13 per cent)

Analyst reports (22 per cent)

Webcasts (22 per cent)

Videos (22 per cent)

Slide presentations (15 per cent)

Mistake 2 – Talking to the wrong audience

The article further states that 48 per cent of marketers surveyed in the report said their main problem to achieving quality lead generation was that their content was not customized for different audience segments. Moreover, these statistics further emphasize their concerns of not reaching out to the actual decision makers (43 per cent). Not just this, the report highlighted that in most cases the content churned is generic and does not really cater to a specific audience (44 per cent.)

Hence, in order to ensure that your content gets higher visibility, make sure you conduct a thorough customer profiling to understand their tastes, needs, and the environments they function within. Once you have overcome this milestone, your work will be less cumbersome.

Next, figure out a way to talk to them that is not only informative but entertaining and engaging. Remember that your customers are evaluating you and what you have to offer. Treat the whole experience as a journey and converse with them in a tone that not only works best for them but suits your brand perception as well.

Mistake 3 – Staying within your comfort zone

It is not always enough to talk to the audience who has known you. Exploring different target segments can do a lot of good to your lead generation plans. While your content may be available via the usual media – email, social and websites, you also need to explore trending platforms.

Make sure you refer to these insights before you plan your next marketing strategy, in order to realize the true potential contained in your content.